Fun {and cheap!} Summer Clothes!

Summer semester is officially over and I finally don't have any homework! It's a serious miracle. Well this semester has been completely insane and I have been craft deprived. It's safe to say that I went craft-crazed over the past weekend.

First up.. my easy-peazy summer dress. I found this dress on the Sweet Verbena blog. She is great at doing the tutorial, so you might want to head over to her blog.

I got my fabric at NPS which is off of California Avenue. If you haven't been there to buy fabric, please please go! This amazing jersey fabric is 60 inches wide and for one yard it was $1.29. Seriously. You cannot find cheaper fabric in the valley.

I started out just like she did. My fabric is 60 inches across and I folded it in half. I made it about 65 inches long. So my final measurements at this point were 30" x 65 ".

I then stitched down the side so I had a tube shape.

Next I stitched closed the top so it was like a giant pillow case.

To make the neck hole, I went to the center of the dress (where my stitching was). I cut a straight line down 6 inches.

To make sleeves, I went to the side and cut out 8 inch long slots.

At this point, I hemmed up the sleeves but I left the neck. I think that the neck line looked cuter without the hem.

*So here is where I made some changes. I liked the dress, but it just seemed really bulky around my sides. I wore it around a few times and made a few different changes to it, but it still seemed like it wasn't working for me. So last weekend I brought it to my sewing station one more time.

I decided that what it needed was more contouring. This jersey just hang really heavy so it needed more shape to it. The original pattern would probably work if the jersey was light and thin.

I ended up taking 4 inches off each side of the dress and I contoured the middle just by hand. I had also cut it too short the first time so I added a fringe onto it.

I can't even begin to tell you what a difference it made! After all was said and done, I love this dress. The best part? Because I got the fabric so cheap, this dress cost me less than $3!

Next up! My $2 skirt!!

I saw this link on Pinterest. I fell in love with it! I knew I had to try to make it. My mom had given me several ripped jeans last week that I could have to sew. I took the top of one of her jeans to make this skirt. Cost: $0. (I love that number.)

Then bottom half is actually an old sheet from the D.I. Cost: $2.

I started with the jeans. I had to cut them a bit shorter than the Pinterest picture because there was a huge hole. When you are cutting it, make sure to not cut the pockets.

This is the cute fabric that I got!

First thing, I folded and ironed a hem on the sheet. It was about an inch and a half.

Then pin it to the outside of the jean.

As you sew, ruffle the fabric.

Hem the bottom to length and you are done!

I also recycled some jeans that I had...

I have so many jeans with holes in the knees and it drives me crazy! I saw this link on Pinterest and thought it was such a cute idea. I just cut the jeans off and put some of my extra fabric on it. Super easy!

Last but not least! Another super cheap skirt! I {love} super cheap clothes. Have you seen my circle skirt post? I made this one just like the circle skirt on Dana-Made-It blog. The only thing I did differently is that I made a tube instead of a circle. I didn't even hem the bottom because I thought that it look better. I got this fabric at NPS ($1.29 fabric baby!) and I bought the elastic with a coupon at JoAnn's. Again, less than $3!

Crafting and sewing can be so cheap, you just have to be willing to look around and find the right deals. The better the deals, the more fun the crafting is! :)

Only a few weeks left of summer people! Soak it up!!

 

Rag Blanket

Do you guys even remember me?? It's been a while! We have had a lot going on.. First of all this cute husband of mine decided to blow out his knee. Before you can ask, yes it was church ball. :) So we have been dealing with that and all sorts of school work!

Here he is the day of surgery with his get well balloons from my sisters.

As you  can see in the picture, he has been confined to crutches. Dang it!

He gets around pretty good though!

I did this blanket forever ago, but just haven't had time to blog about it. It was actually kind of hard to find instructions on a rag blanket, so I thought I would help all you beginner crafters out. FYI, this is my first rag blanket, so it's not perfect, but it worked out!

My mom had brought over a giant bag of fabric and said that they were going to throw it away if I didn't want it. {Gasp!} I know, I know. Trust me, I had the same reaction. All of this fabric was from the big bag that she gave me.

I cut out 9 x 9 squares of all the fabric.

You need a top, bottom and filler for the center for each square. I matched all of the fabric up. The outside is just cotton fabric and the center is flannel.

Here is something kind of tricky..

 If you want your center filler to show with the rag part of the blanket... you need to cut the filler the same size. So I also cut my filler 9 x 9.

But if you don't want it to show (say you are just doing quilt batting for the center) then you will do it one inch smaller than your other squares. So if I had done batting then I would make the batting squares 8 x 8. Make sense?

I pinned all of the different squares together. I got purple flannel because I wanted to add more to the rag part of the blanket. As I start to sew, I got nervous because I thought that the blanket was going to be too thin. But by the time it was all done, I thought that it was perfect. It would be a perfect summer baby blanket.

When you start sewing the squares, you need to have the right sides out on both sides. This is the top and bottom of the blanket so you need to see the pattern side on both sides. (Does that make sense?)

Sew about an inch away from the edges of the square. This edge will be the rag part of the blanket.

After you have sewn a square around the edges, you need to sew a giant x in the middle of the square. This doesn't so much matter when the filler is the same size as the top and bottom squares, but when your filler is smaller than the other two squares this is essential. The x is what keeps the filler in place.

Then I organized them into patterns.

I put out the fabric the way that I wanted to sew it together. This is important because it's easier to get lost with these blankets. You need to be very organized.

Also make sure that the back pattern matches up (like having the stripes all go the same way).

I put it into rows next. This was just mainly so it didn't take up the whole living room!

Here is another tricky part to explain... When you start sewing the squares together, you need to put the backs of the squares together and sew along the edge. Hopefully my picture shows this better than my wording explains. :) You want the  edge to be sticking up.

Here is what it looks like when you have one row done.

You should sew all the different rows first. Then you can start sewing the rows together.

Here is when I had all of my rows done.

This is what is looks like when all the rows are sewn together. When you are sewing the rows together, you need to match up the seams so that you don't have a whole bunch of different sew lines.

Almost done!

The last step is to make little cuts around all of the free edges at the top.

In order to get that really ruffled look, put it through the wash. Do you see how my filler square added to the ruffle? They are really great beginnner blankets and they are a lot of fun to make!

If you have any questions, put them in the comment box below and I will try my best to answer them! :)

Calling all sewers!

This is one of my newest additions to the baby blankets I am doing. This was satin and cotton. Oh man, the satin gave me a run for my money! It is hard stuff to work with! It didn't iron well and it was always slipping around. Does anyone have any great tips for working with different fabric? I am looking for great tutorials on blogs or YouTube for beginner sewers and I pretty much don't even know where to start. So if any of you sewers have any suggestions or know of any great blogs and tutorials, send them my way! Pretty please!

So I wanted to make a shirt...

Have you all heard of the store called NPS? It's out by California Avenue for those of you who know Salt Lake valley. It's spack in the middle of lots of industrial buildings. My client told me about it so me and my cousin Amy went to check it out. They have amazing fabric there for $1.29 a yard!! It was pure heaven. We found this stripped jersey and Amy mentioned that it would be a cute shirt. I thought about how I had never tried to make a shirt... and soon I was in action.

I have looked at many patterns, but they are just so confusing! So I decided that for my first shirt I would play it safe. I got one of my other shirt that I love and used it as my base.

 I cut around the shirt on one side, then flipped it over for the other side because I didn't want a seam on the top of the shirt. (Does that make sense??)

I folded it over to make sure that the sides matched. Jersey can be hard to cut because it rolls on the edges, but it hides mistakes easy!

I folded it in half again to make sure the edges matched up.

This is what it looked like full out.

I hemmed all of the edges next.

Then I folded it in fourths and cut the hole for the neck.

Next I pinned what I needed to sew together, which was just the sides of course. Make sure to leave room for the sleeves!

I sewed where it was pinned and I was done! Easier than I thought it was going to be.